New Sisters: Carora and Milwaukee

Today there was an exciting development in public diplomacy that brought two communities together: the Venezuelan city of Carora and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These two places have teamed up to build connections through cultural, educational, and economic activities. Notably, it is the first Sister City agreement made between the U.S. and Venezuela in ten years.

The Sister City program allows citizens from the two countries to unite on a local level, which helps build cross-cultural understanding. It can also add a human element to political realities.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said:

Our leaders of our representative countries have not had the warmest relations and that makes what we are doing today more important. If leaders don’t see eye to eye that doesn’t keep individuals from working together. Political leaders come and go, but at the local, grass-roots level there’s still the ability as human beings for us to make the world better.

City officials are looking forward to sharing ideas on issues such as water, dairy production and coffee exchange. Carora is creating a welcome house for visitors from Milwaukee where they can learn about the city’s rich heritage.  It is in fact one of the oldest colonial cities on the South American continent, founded for the first time in 1569.

Considering the cold temperatures in Wisconsin, Milwaukee’s new sister will likely attract her share of snowbirds next winter!

Stay tuned for updates.

Read Full Post »

Venezuelan Coffee, “From the Grower to Your Cup”

Consumers in the U.S. will soon be able to buy specialty coffee from Venezuela in Citgo gas stations. Citgo is a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Pdvsa, and its charitable donations of heating oil in the U.S. are well known. Now, Citgo is helping bring small producers in Venezuela to the global stage by carrying Café Venezuela, a brand of coffee that comes from farming cooperatives under the Ministry of Agriculture.

Café Venezuela was founded to assist coffee growers in rural Venezuela by packaging their products and delivering them to consumers abroad. It is comprised of small and medium coffee producers, mostly on family farms and in communities that have historically suffered from economic marginalization.

The company is aimed at helping Venezuelan farmers to prosper, but its goals also include maintaining traditional lifeways in the countryside, fostering environmental sustainability, and achieving food security. Behind these goals is a simple commercial relationship that also has cultural significance; the slogan of Café Venezuela appropriately reads: “from the grower to your cup.”

Read Full Post »